The present invention relates generally to the display of Web page content and, more particularly, to tailoring Web content for display in client devices.
The Internet is a worldwide decentralized network of computers having the ability to communicate with each other. The Internet has gained broad recognition as a viable medium for communicating and interacting across multiple networks. The World-Wide Web (Web) was created in the early 1990""s, and is comprised of server-hosting computers (Web servers) connected to the Internet that have hypertext documents (referred to as Web pages) stored therewithin. Web pages are accessible by client programs (e.g., Web browsers) utilizing the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) via a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connection between a client-hosting device and a server-hosting device. While HTTP and Web pages are the prevalent forms for the Web, the Web itself refers to a wide range of protocols including Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and Gopher, and Web content formats including plain text, HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML), as well as image formats such as Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) and Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG).
A Web site is conventionally a collection of Web pages and other files related to a particular subject that includes a beginning file called a xe2x80x9chomexe2x80x9d page. A large Web site may reside on a number of geographically-dispersed Web servers. The Web site of the International Business Machines Corporation (www.ibm.com), for example, consists of thousands of Web pages and files spread out over various Web servers in locations world-wide.
An intranet is a private computer network conventionally contained within an enterprise and that conventionally includes one or more servers in communication with multiple user computers. An intranet may be comprised of interlinked local area networks and may also use leased-lines in a wide-area network. An intranet may or may not include connections to the outside Internet. Intranets conventionally utilize various Internet protocols and, in general, often look like private versions of the Internet. An intranet user conventionally accesses an intranet server via a browser running locally on his/her computer.
A Web (or intranet) server is a computer program (typically running on a computer) that serves requested Web pages and files. A Web client is a requesting program associated with a user. A browser is an exemplary Web client for use in requesting Web pages and files from Web servers. A Web server waits for a Web client, such as a browser, to open a connection and request a specific web page (or file). The Web server then sends a copy of the requested item, closes the connection, and waits for the next connection.
When a browser interacts with a Web server, the two programs typically utilize HTTP. HTTP allows a browser to request a specific item, which the Web server then returns and the browser renders. To ensure that browsers and Web servers can interoperate unambiguously, HTTP defines the exact format of requests (HTTP requests) sent from a browser to a Web server as well as the format of responses (HTTP responses) that the Web server returns to the browser.
Exemplary browsers for both Internet and intranet use include Netscape Navigator(copyright) (America Online, Inc., 22000 AOL Way, Dulles, Va.) and Internet Explorer(copyright) (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.). Browsers typically provide a graphical user interface for retrieving and viewing Web pages, applications, and other resources hosted by Internet/intranet servers (hereinafter collectively referred to as xe2x80x9cWeb serversxe2x80x9d).
As is known to those skilled in this art, a Web page is conventionally formatted via a standard page description language such as HTML, which typically contains text and can reference graphics, sound, animation, and video data. HTML provides for basic document formatting and allows a Web content provider to specify anchors or hypertext links (typically manifested as highlighted text) to other Web servers and files. When a user selects a particular hypertext link, a browser reads and interprets an address, called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) associated with the link, connects the browser with a Web server at that address, and makes a request (e.g., an HTTP request) for the file identified in the link. The Web server then sends the requested file to the Web client which the browser interprets and displays to the user.
Many new electronic devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), hand-held computers, Internet-ready phones, and WebTVs, are gaining access to the Internet and/or to intranets as client devices. Electronic devices including, but not limited to, PDAs, cellular telephones, and computing devices utilized within appliances and automobiles, are often collectively referred to as xe2x80x9cpervasivexe2x80x9d computing devices. Many such pervasive computing devices utilize the Microsoft(copyright) Windows CE and 3Com Palm Computing(copyright) platforms.
Unfortunately, the capabilities of pervasive computing devices to receive, process, store and display Internet content may vary. For example, pervasive computing devices typically have displays that are small in size compared with desktop computer displays. As a result, content portions of a Web page, such as images and rendered HTML that may be otherwise displayable on a desktop computer display, may not be displayable on a pervasive computing device display unless some modifications to the images and/or text (i.e., the content) are made. For example, a desktop computer display having an array of 1024 pixels by 768 pixels may be able to display a large (e.g., 2 megabyte), 24 bit per pixel color image. A pervasive computing device with a display having an array of 120 pixels by 120 pixels, and with the ability to display only about 3 bits per pixel, may ignore much of the image data. As a result the image may not be displayed properly, if at all, via the pervasive computing device display unless the size of the image is transformed to the pervasive computing device""s capabilities. Furthermore, some pervasive computing devices may not be capable of displaying certain image file types such as JPEG or GIF.
Text fonts and sizes within Web content may also need to be changed to permit the display thereof within a pervasive computing device display. Furthermore, common HTML features such as frames and tables may not be displayable by pervasive computing devices. Data within frames and tables may need to be removed and/or reformatted into other configurations for proper display. In addition, performance limitations of pervasive computing devices, such as memory size and connection bandwidth, may also require changes to Web page content for proper display thereof via a pervasive computing device.
It is known to take Web content that may not be properly displayable via a pervasive computing device and xe2x80x9ctailorxe2x80x9d the Web content into a format that is displayable. For example, large, high resolution, color images can be transformed into small, black and white images that can be displayed within small, low resolution displays. The tailoring of video, images, audio and text for display within a client device typically is referred to as xe2x80x9ctranscoding.xe2x80x9d Web content transcoding is described in detail in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/239,935 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,535,896 and Ser. No. 09/240,137 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,457,030 which are assigned to International Business Machines Corporation and which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. Web content transcoding is typically performed by a transcoding proxy associated with a Web server. Products for transcoding Web content for display by a requesting client device are known. An exemplary transcoding product is xe2x80x9cCocoonxe2x80x9d available from the Apache Server Foundation at http://java.apache.org. Cocoon is described at http://java.apache.org/cocoon/index.html which is incorporated herein by reference.
To perform Web content transcoding, a Web server and/or transcoding proxy typically needs to know something about a client device making an HTTP request. As is known to those of skill in the art, an HTTP header accompanies HTTP requests to a Web server. An HTTP header typically provides information about a requesting client device and browser. Exemplary information provided within an HTTP header may include the size of a client device display, whether a client device display is a color display or a monochromatic display, an identification of the client device browser, and an identification of the client device operating system.
Pervasive computing devices with various browsers and configurations are being developed and introduced to market at a rapid pace. Given the variety of new pervasive computing devices, it may be difficult for Web content publishers to tailor content so as to be adequately displayable within many different devices. As a result, a need exists for quickly and easily verifying that Web content tailoring is being performed correctly for each type of client device making an HTTP request. Currently, testing whether or not Web content tailoring is being performed properly is done by making HTTP requests with each actual client device. Unfortunately, the ability to test Web content tailoring with many different client devices may be expensive and time consuming, and may be technically infeasible to analytically validate responses.
In view of the above discussion, it is an object of the present invention to provide systems, methods and computer program products for simulating different client devices running on various software platforms to ensure that Web page content tailoring is performed correctly.
It is another object of the present invention to facilitate the display of Web pages via pervasive computing devices that may have smaller displays and various performance limitations as compared with desktop computing devices.
These and other objects of the present invention are provided by systems, methods and computer program products for testing (i.e., validating) whether Web content has been properly tailored by a transcoding proxy for display within various requesting pervasive computing devices. Simulated HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests are built using information from one or more data files. Each simulated request preferably includes a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that identifies a location of Web content. Each simulated request also preferably includes an HTTP is header containing information about a respective pervasive computing device. Exemplary pervasive computing device information included within an HTTP header may include, but is not limited to, an identification of a device""s browser, an identification of a device""s operating system, characteristics of a device""s display, and information about Web content a device is configured to display.
Simulated HTTP requests are issued to respective Web servers identified in the respective HTTP requests. An HTTP response to each respective simulated HTTP request is received and includes Web content tailored for display within a respective pervasive computing device associated with the respective simulated HTTP request. Each HTTP response is then compared with an expected HTTP response. An HTTP response that does not compare favorably with an expected HTTP response can be saved for later analysis.
The present invention may facilitate determining whether Web content is properly tailored for display within virtually any type of client device having virtually any type of configuration without requiring that the actual device be used in the test. As a result, use of the present invention by Web content providers may result in considerable time savings, cost savings, and higher quality program products.